The BBWAA Needs to Change

As you can see, it’s not just me. There are plenty more tweets like this. This is no disrespect to Scott Rolen either, congratulations to him, he was an exceptional baseball player. But there are many others that deserved to be in the Hall of Fame before him, and they aren’t. 

The BBWAA is actively trying to void the entire Steroid Era of baseball. I get it, cheating is bad, but most of the guys who are in the record books who were steroid users would have been Hall of Famers regardless. Steroids don’t have that big of an effect if you’re bad at the game. Bonds, Clemens, A-Rod all should be in the Hall, especially if David Ortiz is in. The difference: the media liked Ortiz, they hated the others. Pete Rose should be in too, the all-time hits leader and home run leader are not in the Hall of Fame, it’s embarrassing. 

I digress. 

These writers have a distinct privilege to be able to vote on this, and so many of them squander it by being out of touch with the game. They submit blank ballots, vote for one or two players, it should not be allowed. If you do that, your voting rights should be stripped from you indefinitely. 

This isn’t rocker science. It is overwhelmingly obvious at this point that many Writers a part of the BBWAA let their ego’s and their feelings get in the way of what is right. “Oh, you weren’t nice to me when you played? better luck next year, chump.” It is a disservice to the game.

Additionally, you cannot sit there and say with a straight face Scott Rolen was better at baseball than Andruw Jones, Carlos Beltran, Gary Sheffield, Jeff Kent (who is now off the ballot, by the way) or even Todd Helton. You would be dead wrong. Is Jimmy Rollins going to get in? He has an MVP! Rolen has one top 13 MVP finish in his career. You see what I’m getting at?

By the way, Rolen received just 10.8% of the vote his first year, then 76.3% this year, his sixth. Tell me how that makes sense? 

Figure it out.